The State of the Black Economy

Enlarge image

Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment rate among Black, White and Hispanic Americans.

On the coattails of President Obama's second inaugural address yesterday and the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Central Standard looks at the economic situation for the African-American community in the United States.

Mathew Forstater and Linwood F. Tauheed, professors of economics at the University of Missouri at Kansas City speak with Brian about their research on the historical changes of the economic development in the African-American community and what contributes to this in today's economy.

Inequalities in employment and wealth serve as the central focus of the conversation. For example, the median wealth of white households in this country is 20 times more than African-American households, according to a Pew study released last year. Wealth invested in home ownership is a factor to this statistic, according to Forstater and Tauheed, and the two take these statistics and apply it to the Kansas City black economy.